Childhood Influences Flashcards
Who developed Love as Attachment Theory?
Hazen and Shaver
What is the basic premixe of this theory?
That the internal working model provided by the primary care giver in infancy affects all future relationships.
What did Bowlby say which happens to support this theory?
“Early attachment influences us from the cradle to the grave”.
What three behavioural systems develop as a result of early experiences?
- Attachment
- Care Giving
- Sexuality
How will the attachment behavioural system affect us later in life?
The charactaristics of our attachment type will be present in adult relationships. Ainsworth predicted that attachment type would be an enduring, lifelong personality trait.
- SECURE: not jealous, show affection, honest, open, willing to rely on/trust partener
- INSECURE RESISTANT: clingy, jealous, unsure whether to rely on partener, inconsistent affaction, ‘gameplaying’
- INSECURE AVOIDANT: avoids imtimacy, avoids showing affection, scared of commitment, unwilling to rely on partener for emotional support
How will the caregiving behavioural system affect us later in life?
Our primary care giver models careing behaviour which we immitate in later life. How we were cared for as infants will influence how we care for our partner in adult relationships.
- Caregiver sensitivity refers to how good you are at reading someone else’s and providing for their needs consistently.
- This is socially sensitive as it suggests that children who have been abused/neglected will treat their children the same.
How will the sexuality behavioural system affect us later in life?
This referes to our sex life being shaped by attachment type and not sexual orientation.
- SECURE: likely to have fulfilling sex life within long-term relationship
- INSECURE RESISTANT: likely to have a turbulent sex life and may use sex as a tool in ‘game playing’ (such as getting back at a partener for something bad they did)
- INSECURE AVOIDANYT: likely to seek sex without love in an attempt to avoid genuine intimacy.
What is the official name of Hazen and Shaver’s ‘Love Quiz’?
Romantic Love conceptualised as an attachment process.
Outline Hazen and Shaver’s Love Quiz experiemnt - AO2 for Love as Attachment Theory
- Aimed to find out whether attachment theory could be used to undertsnad romantic love in adults. Specifically, to see how different attachment types differ in their experience of romatic love.
- Love quiz published in local American newspaper with one quiz about participants curent/recent relationships and another on love life whilst the third measured attachment type in infancy.
- **The secure group reported longer adult relationships, the avoidants were kost likely to report fear of intimacy whereas the resistants were most likely to report extreme crushes and jealousy. **
- They concluded that we can use attachment theory to understand romntic relationships in adulthood and that the quality of relationships with parents influences adult attachment type. Secure adult attachment is associated with longer, happier relationships whilst insecures experience problems that we would expect given the behaviour of those attachment types in infancy.
How do Hazen and Shaver’s findings support Love as Attachment Theory?
They suggest that there is a correlation between early attachment types and later adult relationships. This supports Love as Attachment Theory because it suggests that our relationship with out caregiver in early infancy influences our adult romantic relationships.
Apart from Hazen & Shaver’s study, which two other studies took place? Names only.
- Banse
- Waters et al
Outline Banse’s experiment.
- 333 German couples
- Correlation between relationship satisfaction and attachment type.
- Secure attachment type correlated positively with relattionship satisfaction
- Most satisfies when both couples were secure
- For both insecure types, satisfaction correlated negatively.
- Shows that attachment type affects satisfaction in adult relationships.
Outline Waters et al’s experiment.
Retested adults for their attachment type 20 years after they were first assessed (as 1 year olds). 72% of adults recieved the same attachment type classification as they did in infancy from the strange situation. This supports Ainsworth’s view that attachment type is enduring but 28% changes their attachment type which suggests that individual differences or enviromental factors may have an effect.
What types of critiscisms could you use on these three studies?
- 3rd variables
- direction of causality
- rhetrospective data
- etc
What two behaviours/occurances can Love as Attachment Theory help us to understand and why?
- PROMISCUITY: resitents want people to like them whilst avoidants seek sex without love to aviod intimacy
- CYCLES OF ABUSE/NEGLECT: dysfunctional ‘internal working model’ causes parents to treat their own children badly as they were treated when they were young. (however maybe SLT offers a simpler explanation for this)
